Rosemary Street runs through it

I was driving back to the store today and happened to turn onto East Rosemary Street at Boundary, so I passed by the house where I lived during the summer of 1990, and that got me to thinking about how central to my life Rosemary Street has been over most of the time I've lived in Chapel Hill. The Pink House was a block behind East Rosemary on North Street, the second national SEAC office was on East Rosemary, the MOVE office & the first Lost City location overlooked West Rosemary, and the second Lost City is at 402 West Rosemary Street.

Even the side streets running off Rosemary Street have been important. Ericka Kurz lived on the corner of Church and Short Street, a block from Rosemary. Jyoti & Swati's Plastic House was right behind La Rez on Pritchard Ave., one house off Rosemary. I started running my used furniture business working out of Chris Pedigo's apartment on Pritchard, also storing stuff at the Plastic House, inside the Pink House garage, and throwing yard sales at both Pritchard locations. And of course, Jay Murray has kept the Pink House vibe alive for five years on the corner of Pritchard and Carr.

R.I.P. Ericka Kurz (1968-1993)

I think I'm past my initial shock at the news of Ericka's death and my profound grief that followed. I was definitely grieving for a while there this week, walking around campus all out of focus and lost in worlds of thought about her, and all the times I could remember spending with her. I kept turning the details of how she died over in my head, and lost a lot of sleep the first couple of nights after you called me, just feeling miserable and agitated, all fucked up in general.

Ericka and Raj at Pink House, Spring '92.

Now I'm at a stage where everything's receding a little bit, which is both good and bad. Until my exams finish, I absolutely have to focus on studying. But at the same time, I feel like my mind unleashed this torrent of memories about Ericka this week that now, already somehow, I don't remember as well any more. It's funny how memory works like that. I want to think about Ericka, and write everything down about her that I can recall, but again, I feel like I can't sit down, start, and not finish. It's got to be the whole nine or else I'm going to further mess with my memory circuits and not be able to conjure up intense mental images of her again for a long time.

- Letter to Dana, 5/2/93

(Note from 10/28/10 - Impossibly hard to believe it's been 17 1/2 years since Ericka was murdered. That seems like such an eternity, and yet I still think about her and miss her like crazy. From the time I met Ericka at the first SEAC organizing meeting of the fall '89 semester in Hamilton Hall, I had a mad crush on her. (In Caroline Philson's words, me and probably every other guy - and girl - in SEAC). Only I was a freshman, and she was a junior, so there was little chance that was going to happen. But we became friends.

Pink House, Spring '92. Photo courtesy of Raj Krishnasami.

I wish I had written down my memories of Ericka like I'd planned to back then, because I'd love to remember every detail of all the times I spent hanging out with her late nights around her kitchen table on Short Street, passing through the familiar beaded curtains to find her (and often her housemate Banu, or other pals) eating ice cream or occasionally cooking up something more nutritious. Dropping by the SEAC HQ's, both office #1 on Franklin Street, then #2 on Rosemary, and watching her work day and night to make sure SEAC would continue taking things to the next level. Plotting with her on an ultimately unsuccessful plan to secure an off-campus house on Mallette Street that would double as an office space and crash pad for national staffers. Driving her to Raleigh one afternoon at breakneck speed through rush hour traffic because she had to file some important paperwork by 5 pm for SEAC's national incorporation. Going out to her Mom (Jennie Knoop)'s Granville County farm for a retreat and sitting under the stars together with all our fellow SEAC'ers in front of bonfires late into the night, feeling young and idealistic and full of life.


"UNC-CH students protest Exxon recruiting & policies," N&O, 10/20/90. From right: Lisa Abbott, Ericka Kurz, Jimmy Langman, Alec Guettal, David Biggs, Erik Ose. Dan Coleman and Greg Gangi are near the far left.

Last year I re-connected with former SEAC National Office staffer and Threshold editor Eric Odell. He wrote an eloquent tribute to Ericka that was read at her memorial service (also at her Mom's farm), and promised me he'd look for a copy to re-post here at some point. As time continues to pass, it bothers me more and more that Ericka's story remains largely untold. Although I did recently stumble across a long blog post that her Mom wrote in 2006, which is the most detailed account of her life and death available online. Ericka helped change the world in her not-quite-25 years (Dec. 5, 1968 - April 25, 1993), and had the potential to do so much more if she had lived longer. Her death was a heartbreaking tragedy and outrage.)

For more info about Ericka's organizing work with SEAC, visit The Ericka Kurz Archive.

Threshold launches SEAC as a national movement

Twenty years after we both spent countless hours helping to organize Threshold in our first semester at UNC, C-line and I sat down to reminisce and remember about SEAC's early days. We thought about touching down at the Forest Theatre, where Threshold concluded in an emotional ceremony on Sunday, October 29, 1989. But it was otherwise occupied by the Paperhand Puppet Intervention, performing one of their annual late summer shows. So we traveled a few hundred yards down the road, and ended up at the curved stone bench behind Gimghoul Castle that overlooks the far edge of Battle Park.



At the first SEAC organizing meeting of the fall semester '89 (in Hamilton 100), Jimmy Langman convinced us all that Threshold was going to spark a national movement, and Ericka Kurz gave a fiery, impassioned speech wearing a cool black leather jacket. Besides Jimmy and Ericka, SEAC O.G.'s who were running the show included Alec Guettal, Blan Holman, and Don Whittier. They were all juniors, seniors, even recent grads, but nobody past their early twenties. Still, as C-line put it, "They seemed so old. And we said, tell us what you need us to do!"



The nuts and bolts work of actually organizing a nationwide conference in the pre-internet era was a little less romantic. Working alongside dedicated souls like Lisa Abbott, Chris van Daalen, Celeste Joye, Yu-Yee Wu, Raj Krishnasami, Mark Chilton, Quaker Kappel, Ruby Sinreich, Dave Ball, and a bunch of other SEAC'ers, we prepared mass mailings, entered hundreds of pre-registered attendees' names into ancient Mac computers, lined up crash pad arrangements with hundreds of UNC students, and using a primitive device known as the landline telephone, called up folks who wanted more info to convince them to make the trek to Chapel Hill. And my favorite part, sitting around in endless meeting circles on the second floor of the Campus Y, arguing over one minor detail or another until the WHOLE GROUP reached a consensus.


Threshold ad from Oct. '89 issue of Music Monitor.

The conference succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Over 1,700 folks showed up from around the country, representing 43 states and 225 schools. It was the largest gathering of student activists since the heyday of SDS in the late 60s. And it launched SEAC as a national student and youth-led environmental movement.

On a personal level, my involvement with SEAC convinced me I wanted to be an organizer, and laid the foundation for all my political work that's followed. I became good friends with C-line, and our adventures have continued ever since. I worked on my first winning political campaign thanks to SEAC, when we helped elect Mark Chilton to the Chapel Hill Town Council two years later. And if I hadn't bonded with fellow SEAC'er Raj K., we wouldn't have agreed to live together (along with Clint Curtis) in the spring of '91, which started our search for off-campus housing that eventually led to the Pink House.